Elsie Stephens

Elsie Stephens (1969-) was a Labour member of the Sunderland City Council from 2000.

Biography
Elsie Stephens was born in the Copt Hill district of Sunderland, Tyne and Wear, England in 1969 to a working-class family. Stephens followed in her father's footsteps as a trade union official, and she became involved with the Labour Party in the 1990s. In 2000, at the age of 31, she became Leader of the Labour Party on the Sunderland City Council, controlling 16/30 council seats after that year's election, in close second was the Conservative Party with 11 seats, followed by UKIP with 3 seats. Despite Stephens' control of the majority on the council, Labour council members Frederick Gilby, George Laimber, Leslie Vryman, and Richard Ireton crossed party lines to support the Tory leader Kathleen Edwins' bid for the job of Mayor, and Edwins won the election in a vote of 16-11.